Holder Responds to Congressional Inquiries on Fast and Furious

From the Center of Public Integrity's new iWatch News site:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder clashed heatedly with California Republican Darrell Issa Tuesday as a House hearing raised questions about whether a federal gun trafficking probe that ultimately allowed U.S. - bought guns to reach Mexican cartels might bear some responsibility for the deaths of U.S. agents.

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After the controversy over Fast and Furious first erupted, Holder announced that the Justice Department as a matter of policy does not allow guns to be smuggled into Mexico. And in a letter sent Monday to Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Holder said, “It remains our understanding that ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious did not knowingly permit straw buyers to take guns into Mexico.”

But in a letter responding to Holder yesterday, Issa and Grassley said recent interviews with ATF agents in the Phoenix office contradict Holder’s assertion. Their letter said that according to these ATF agents, “there was a specific strategy implemented to not ‘make every effort’ but rather to avoid interdicting weapons in hopes of making a larger case against higher-ups in the trafficking organization.”

This is pathetic. Holder is either lying or has himself fallen for such an obvious lie that you question his fitness for high office. (I'd guess it's column A.) That formulation --"It remains our understanding that ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious did not knowingly permit straw buyers to take guns into Mexico"-- is almost a parody of public-servant dissembling. Holder later got all emotional when Issa said the Justice Department was guilty of contributing to the killings of American agents; that may have been an unfair shot, but the ATF knew that the weapons weren't going to be decorating mantles, and they had the knowledge and legal authority to stop the 1,700 guns from heading over the border.